The Top Ten Most Expensive Gifts Of All Time

Washington Post scion Edward Beale McLean gave the famed 45.52-carat Hope Diamond to wife Evalyn in 1911. Today it is housed in the Smithsonian, donated by jeweller Harry Winston, who acquired the gem after Mrs. McLean's death. (Photo:...

In the festive season, we’re often reminded, “It’s better to give than to receive.” Here are ten lavish examples where the getting must have been pretty good, too. From gigantic gems to profligate nuptials, art masterpieces to jets and super-yachts, these tycoon treats set the standard for extravagant gifting.

1. The Jewel In The Crown

The last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, Duleep Singh presented Queen Victoria with the 186-carat Koh-i-noor diamond in 1849. Considering the giant gem a little dull, Victoria’s consort Prince Albert had it cut down to a more brilliant 105.6 carats three years later. Today it’s set in the Queen Mother’s crown and is a highlight of the British Crown Jewels. Once the largest diamond ever found, its value is inestimable. (By way of comparison, the 45.42-carat Hope Diamond is said to be worth in excess of $250 million.)

A replica of the Koh-i-noor diamond, which sits atop the late Queen Mother's crown, under guard in the Tower of London. (Photo: DESHAKALYAN CHOWDHURY/AFP/Getty Images)

2. Freedom Ain't Free

Already cash-strapped after the Seven Years War, in the 1770s, France funded the American War of Independence to the tune of approximately $20 billion in today’s money, directly leading to a major financial crisis and the French Revolution. Helping give the American people freedom from British domination could be said to have cost King Louis XVI not only beaucoup d'argent, but his crown… and his head. (Later, the French presented the United States with the grandiose gift of the Statue of Liberty as a souvenir of their commingled liberation from royal rule.)

3. Pearl Appeal

In 1917, New York banker Morton Plank traded his six-story Fifth Avenue mansion for a $1 million ($20 million in today’s dollars) pearl necklace from Cartier, a gift for his young wife. A few years later, Mikimoto’s invention of cultured pearls caused prices to crash, and the necklace was sold for just $150,000 after Mrs. Plank’s death in 1956. The former Plank mansion, which has served as Cartier’s New York flagship store for almost a century, would today be worth hundreds of millions, making the banker’s barter one of history’s most unfortunate, and the gift ultimately one of the most expensive ever.

The Cartier Mansion on Fifth Avenue, New York, acquired by the jeweller in exchange for a million-dollar pearl necklace in 1917. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

4. Highly Curated

In 2003, cosmetics billionaire Leonard Lauder gave his $1.1 billion collection of Cubist masterpieces (including works by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Legér) to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the largest art donation of all time.

5. Art Lovers

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has bought his art-loving wife, the gallery owner and editor Dasha Zhukova, hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of masterpieces during the course of their decade-plus relationship. Abramovich’s generous acquisitions for his spouse have included a $14 million Giacometti sculpture, a group of 40 paintings by Russian artist Ilya Kabakov (priced at $30-60 million each), and works by Francis Bacon ($86 million) and Lucian Freud ($33 million).

Francis Bacon's Triptych (1976), purchased by Roman Abramovich in 2008 for £43 million — at the time, the highest price ever achieved for a Bacon and the most ever spent at auction for a contemporary work of art. (Photo by Cate...

6. Diamonds Aren't Forever

Competing against the Sultan of Brunei and Aristotle Onassis, amongst others, Richard Burton lost out on a 68-carat diamond at auction in 1969. Gripped with remorse, the next day, he bought it from the winner, Cartier, for $1 million — then the highest price ever paid for a publicly sold jewel and equivalent to some $6.6 million today — and gave it to his wife, Elizabeth Taylor. Following her second divorce from Burton in 1978, Taylor sold the diamond and donated the proceeds to fund the building of a hospital in Botswana.

A tribute from the Mughal Shah to his late wife, in the 17th century, the Taj Mahal cost 32 million rupees to build, a sum nearing a billion dollars in today's terms. (AP Photo/John Moore)

7. Palatial Memorial

Mughal ruler Shah Jahan spent the equivalent of $827 million in today’s money building, over 22 years starting in 1632, the Taj Mahal as a gift to — and mausoleum for — his late, favorite wife. More than 20,000 artisans participated in the creation of what is now India’s top tourist attraction. Legend has it that the Shah executed many of the architects and craftsmen involved in the Taj Mahal’s construction in order to ensure they’d never again build anything so glorious, making this gift vastly expensive in terms of time, money and perhaps, human lives.

8. Whatever Floats Your Boat

After his brother Mukesh gifted wife Nina a $60 million Airbus A319 corporate jet, Indian billionaire Anil Ambani gave his wife Tina (a former Bollywood actress) a 34-metre super yacht, named Tian, in 2008, reportedly spending $80 million. This sum represents more than double the standard million-per-metre cost of most super yachts, suggesting the Italian-built Custom Line vessel must be rather spectacularly kitted out.

9. Gem Junkies

Evalyn McLean pictured wearing her jewels, including the famous Hope Diamond, on her return to New York from a tour of Moscow. (AP Photo)

In 1908, gold-mining multimillionaire Thomas Walsh bought as a wedding present for his daughter Evalyn the 94.80-carat, $120,000 Star of the East diamond from Cartier Paris. Three years later, again shopping at Cartier, Evalyn’s husband, Washington Post scion Edward Beale McLean, bought her the 45.52-carat Hope Diamond for $300,000 (around $7.6 million today). She often wore the two together, sometimes placing the Hope on her pet Great Dane’s collar during parties. Jeweller Harry Winston acquired both gems after Mrs. McLean’s death, and was moved to gift the Hope nine years later, in 1958, to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, where it remains. (It’s reportedly insured for $250 million.) The Star of the East’s present whereabouts are unknown.